1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to financial transaction processing systems and methods, and more specifically, to such systems and methods wherein at least one document containing financial transaction-related information is optically scanned to generate at least one computer-readable image from which the information may be extracted for use in processing the transaction. Particular utility for the present invention is found in the area of processing electronic financial transactions (e.g., electronic funds transfer (EFT) and Automatic Clearing House (ACH) transactions), although other utilities are also contemplated for the present invention, including other financial transaction processing and accounting applications. Additionally, although the present invention will be described in connection with processing financial transactions based at least partially upon information contained on specific types of financial documents (e.g., drafts, checks, and billing documents), it should be understood that processing of financial transactions based upon other types of documents, including other types of financial documents, may also be accomplished, without departing from the present invention.
2. Brief Description of Related Prior Art
Many systems and methods exist in the prior art for electronically processing and/or executing financial transactions. For example, debit card systems exist wherein EFT and/or ACH transactions may be authorized to pay for goods or services at the point of sale (e.g., at the merchant or retailers place of business, and/or at the location of third party transaction agent for the merchant or retailer). Such systems typically include a mechanism for reading customer bank account information encoded on a magnetic strip on the customer's debit card, which information is then utilized by the system to generate an EFT or ACH request from the customer bank account to the payee's bank account (e.g., the retailer's or merchant's bank account). Typically, prior to executing the EFT or ACH request, the system requires the customer to input a pre-selected Personal Identification Number (PIN) or other type of authorization information associated with the debit card being used in the transaction, and unless the pre-selected PIN or authorization information is input correctly, the system will not execute the request.
However, despite growing use of debit card transactions for point of sale payment of goods or services, tendering of paper negotiable instruments (e.g,. checks and drafts), remains the most widely used method of effectuating such payment. Many customers appear to favor effectuating point of sale payments using such negotiable instruments, and conversely, appear to disfavor effectuating such payments via debit cards. This is unfortunate, since processing by merchants of negotiable instruments tendered at point of sale for payment of the merchants' goods or services creates substantial problems.
For example, processing by merchants of such negotiable instruments significantly increases transaction costs associated with sale of the merchants' good and services. Typically, a merchant accepting payment in the form of a negotiable instrument must wait a "float" period of one or more days following deposit of the instrument in the merchant's bank account for the instrument to clear the bank on which it is drawn, and for the funds transferred via the instrument to be actually made available in the merchant's bank account. The loss of use of the payment funds during this float period deleteriously affects merchant cash flow.
Additionally, the merchant accepting payment via a negotiable instrument usually does not know whether the presenter of the instrument has sufficient funds or whether the presentee of the instrument intends to honor the instrument. The risks and merchant bank charges associated with potential and/or actual non-payment of the instrument drives up merchant costs associated with acceptance of the instrument as payment for the merchant's goods and/or services.
Furthermore, under present banking regulations, although there is no limit to the number of times EFT or ACH transactions refused due to insufficient funds can be resubmitted for payment, a check returned to the merchant for insufficient funds can only be once re-submitted to the banking system for payment. This means that once a check has twice been returned to a merchant for insufficient funds, the merchant must seek to obtain payment for the goods and/or services provided in exchange for the check via means outside the banking system (e.g., by contacting the customer or payor of the check, turning the check over to a collection agency, and/or turning to litigation). Each of these options involves expenditures of time, money, and other resources by the merchant.
As a solution to the aforesaid problems associated with acceptance of negotiable instruments as point of sale payment for goods and services, it has been proposed to permit merchants to "convert" such negotiable instruments into EFT or ACH transactions. That is, it has been proposed to permit merchants to accept tender of negotiable instruments at point of sale as payment for their goods and services, but to allow the merchants to submit, at the point of sale, without prior consent of the payor of the negotiable instrument, EFT or ACH requests equivalent to the transactions specified in the negotiable instruments, in place of actually submitting the negotiable instruments themselves to the banking system for collection.
Unfortunately, the United States Federal Reserve System has been unwilling to allow merchants to "convert" such negotiable instruments into EFT or ACH transactions, without prior approval or authorization of the payor of the negotiable instrument, and some payors have instituted litigation challenging the legality of such unauthorized "conversions" by merchants. To the best of the knowledge and belief of the Applicant, all such litigation has been settled in favor of the payors.
Systems and methods also exist in the prior art for effectuating payment of bills or accounts payable via EFT and/or ACH transactions. For example, various commercially available computer software programs exist for electronically paying bills based upon information (e.g., bill payee, amount due, etc.) manually input to the program by a human user, or provided to the program from a previously generated file containing such information. Disadvantageously, such programs require a significant amount of human operator interaction which can slow the process of paying bills using such programs. Further disadvantageously, such programs are subject, to a significant degree, to human operator errors (e.g., input of erroneous payment information), which can result in generation of erroneous electronic bill payments.
Other conventional bill and accounts payable payment systems and methods optically scan billing or accounts payable documents to generate computer-readable scanned images of the documents, and determine from the scanned images the amounts due and billing account information (e.g., customer billing account numbers) respectively specified on the documents being scanned. With previously granted authorization for same, EFT and/or ACH transaction requests may then be generated based upon the amounts due and billing account information, whereby to effectuate payment of the bills or accounts payable. Unfortunately, such conventional payment techniques typically are only capable of accurately recognizing and processing a single, "pre-selected" type of billing or accounts payable document format, and if billing or accounts payable documents having different formats from the "pre-selected" format are processed using these techniques, it can be expected that erroneous amounts due and billing account information may be generated, and therefore, erroneous EFT and/or ACH transaction requests may also be generated. Furthermore, since many different types of billing and accounts payable document formats exist, and in many instances the particular document format utilized is unique to the party generating the document (e.g., the vendor or service provider issuing the document), the fact that these prior art techniques are able to properly recognize and process only a single document format type means that only those documents generated by a single party (or, at most, a small number of parties) may be properly recognized and processed by these prior art techniques.
Examples of prior art financial transaction processing systems and methods are disclosed in e.g., Owens et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,264,808; Moreau, U.S. Pat. No. 5,590,196; Josephson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,412,190; Stephens et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,159; Josephson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,532,464; Foreman et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,369,709; Inoyama et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,166,945; Azcua et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,310,885; Hilt et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,206; Pickering, U.S. Pat. No. 5,483,445; and Carlson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,053,607. Unfortunately, all of the prior art disclosed in these patents suffers from the aforesaid and/or other disadvantages and drawbacks.